As the newly named CEO of General Motors, Mary Barra will be the first woman to run a global automaker. It’s a remarkable, sun-roof shattering achievement that not long ago would have seemed unthinkable. But according to Erik Gordon, a professor at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, the most important thing to know about her may be that she is, in fact, “a car guy.”

“There’s nobody with more years of honest ‘car-guy’ credentials than she has,” Gordon told the Associated Press. “She started off as a little-girl car guy. She became a big-girl car guy and now she’s a woman car guy.”

I don’t even mind the sexism, I’m just happy there was a super-qualified woman ready for upgrade on that particular corporate ladder; they didn’t have to headhunt a banker or management consultant or marketing exec from some other business. I hope I like her work product (sounds like she supervised the 2014 models; now I have to go look them up.

An engineer and Stanford MBA, she grew up the daughter of a Pontiac tool and die maker and has worked at GM since the 1980s. She’s actually run an assembly plant. She was vice president of global manufacturing and engineering. And in 2011, after a stint streamlining the company’s bureaucracy as head of human resources, she was promoted to vice president of global product development, where she oversaw the company’s entire vehicle portfolio.

The Mother Of All PiesI'm thrilled for Mary Barra. My first "car job" was at GM in the late 80's. I would have been very happy to spend my entire career there, but I got caught up in the Great Downsizing of '92.

WASHINGTON — Rep. Steve Pearce (R-N.M.) has a suggestion for any of the hundreds of thousands of furloughed government workers worried about being able to pay their bills: take out a loan!

In a post on his personal Facebook page that was later deleted, Pearce urged government workers to call their banks and take out a short-term loan if money is tight.

“If you are a furloughed government employee, we encourage you to reach out to your financial institution as soon as you worry you may miss a paycheck,” read the post. “Don’t wait until you are behind on a bill; call now and explore your options.”

Or maybe they can go to Payday or one of the other short-term loan outfits. What’s the interest rate there, 5% a month?

Washington’s debt brinkmanship has provoked deep anger in Beijing and bolstered its resolve to lessen the world’s reliance on the dollar, according to current and former Chinese government advisers.

Political leaders in the US have intensified talks about their fiscal stand-off, fuelling hopes that Washington will raise its debt ceiling before next week’s deadline.

However, the prospect of last-minute negotiations will test already-frayed nerves in China, the biggest foreign holder of US government debt.

“You can’t hijack the global economy through political struggles. It’s not responsible,” says Yu Yongding, a member of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, a leading government think-tank.

“We are angry but are not panicked. The consequences are bad for the reputation of the US because the credibility of debt is so important,” says Mr Yu, who is also a former adviser to the central bank’s monetary policy committee.

Apparently our ignorant Teahadis don’t realize that being the world’s reserve currency is as important a power source as our military; they’re willing to toss that away for short-term domestic political gain. And then they do it so badly they don’t even get the short-term domestic political gain out of it.

Because mine is an evil and a petty mind, suitable more to wallowing in the sordid sexual goings-on of literary giants than in reading their work, I take every opportunity I can to inform people who may not have known that Walt Whitman and Oscar Wilde almost certainly had sex in 1882.

You are either the kind of person to whom this matters a great deal, or the kind of person to whom it matters not at all. To the latter I say: yours is the narrow road and the straight, and I extend to you a hearty and fulsome handshake, as well as my sincerest wishes for your continued good health. To the former I say: Want to hear about the time Walt Whitman and Oscar Wilde (probably) hooked up??

Today, the President released his 2012 federal income tax returns. He and the First Lady filed their income tax returns jointly and reported adjusted gross income of $608,611. The Obamas paid $112,214 in total tax.

The President and First Lady also reported donating $150,034 – or about 24.6 percent of their adjusted gross income – to 33 different charities. The largest reported gift to charity was $103,871 to the Fisher House Foundation.

Cerberus Capital Management, which counts former Vice President Dan Quayle among its executives, said in a statement Tuesday that it plans to sell its stake in Freedom Group, the parent company of some of the biggest names in firearms, including Bushmaster, the manufacturer of the rifle used to kill 27 people, including 20 first graders, in Friday’s massacre.

In its statement, Cerberus said, ‘We do not believe that Freedom Group or any single company or individual can prevent senseless violence or the illegal use or procurement of firearms and ammunition.’ But, the company added: ‘It is apparent that the Sandy Hook tragedy was a watershed event that has raised the national debate on gun control to an unprecedented level.’

‘As a Firm, we are investors, not statesmen or policy makers,’ the company said. ‘Our role is to make investments on behalf of our clients who are comprised of the pension plans of firemen, teachers, policemen and other municipal workers and unions, endowments, and other institutions and individuals. It is not our role to take positions, or attempt to shape or influence the gun control policy debate. That is the job of our federal and state legislators… There are, however, actions that we as a firm can take. Accordingly, we have determined to immediately engage in a formal process to sell our investment in Freedom Group.’

Having used the Forward’s patented debate drinking game tonight, I’m sitting here quite dry. Which means I’ve got a few quick takeaways from the slugfest in Lon Giland.

1) Jewiest debate ever: Let’s just get this out of the way. Carol Greenberg? Jeremy Epstein? Barry Green? Cary Latke? Latke?! Thankfully the next debate is in Boca Raton, which is a relief, because I was worried only middle aged Jews would get a chance to make their voices heard this election cycle.

After the Democratic and Republican National Conventions closed, as candidates charged back to the campaign trail and as the American media moved on, the campaign speeches made their way across the Pacific Ocean to China, where they are still echoing. While the conventions might be derided within the U.S. as political theater, they have sparked nuanced, even fond discussions among tens of thousands of Chinese, about the differences between the American and Chinese political styles.

First lady Michelle Obama’s speech at the Democratic National Convention earlier this month was such a hit on the Chinese web that one user started a translation contest on Weibo, China’s twitter-style service, for a line that had rapidly become the most popular: “We were so young, so in love, and so in debt.” Thousands pitched in their ideas, giving creative spins to the unembellished sentence. It was reinvented in the edgy vocabulary of Chinese hipsters, in various provincial dialects, and, in some hilarious attempts, in classical Chinese. Some of the last, if translated back into English, might read roughly as: “Once upon a time, our love saw no boundaries and debt had no limit” or “In those years of green plums and bamboo horses [Chinese idiom referring to youth], our love was ocean-deep, and debt mountain-high.”

The translation contest, embraced by Chinese web users with giddy interest, is just one indication of a growing Chinese fascination with American politics and political figures, kindled by the colorful events and bustling campaigns of the U.S. presidential election season. In the past few weeks, hundreds of thousands of Chinese tuned to the convention speeches as they took place. Volunteer translators rushed to attach Chinese subtitles to online videos and photos of these speeches just hours after their delivery. Mesmerized by what they saw, web users poured their feelings into discussion threads on Weibo that ran thousands of posts long. Despite popular sentiment here that can be at times hostile to the U.S., Chinese web users have this month expressed wonder and praise for American politicians’ public demeanors, oratory, and the personal characters that they perceived shining through.

Short of mocking Shetland ponies over their lack of stature or laying into zebras for their failure to make a significant contribution to the world of equine culture, Ann Romney’s horse Rafalca was always going to struggle to match the sheer incredulity that her husband managed to provoke on his recent overseas trip.

And in the event – the event in question being the individual dressage – the 15-year-old bay Oldenburg mare acquitted herself rather well. True, she and her rider, Jan Ebeling, may have been left well behind by Britain’s Carl Hester, Germany’s Dorothee Schneider and Denmark’s Anna Kasprzak but, by Romney standards, her performance was a positive triumph.

Never for a second during her seven-minute performance did a hoof stray dangerously mouthwards, nor did she do anything at all to offend or upset the host nation. From the moment she entered the Greenwich Park equestrian arena at 12.15 on Thursday afternoon, the most famous political horse since Caligula toyed with making a consul of Incitatus seemed in her element.

andresRomney set himself up for this. I don't think the British newspapers will let him live down his words, no matter how much he backpedals. At least, not while he's candidate for President of the USA.

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Justice Department Spokesman Marc Raimondi released the following statement Tuesday: "Three documents - a criminal Information, a plea agreement, and a statement of facts - were filed today in the United States District Court for the Western District of ...

Morgan Whitaker exposes where wingnuts are getting their "information" on "the evil, un-American, Kenyan, Marxist Muslim" Obama. This story is about a year old, but its still relevant today. David Jackson, of Belmont, NC, does not like President Obama. He ...

This is a random post, but since I did a little bit of research, I decided to write up a short summary that may be useful for others. Ever since the 1988 carbon dating of the Shroud of Turin showed ...

What, precisely, is this woman's major malfunction? For going on 30 years, she has been the target of every strange conspiracy theory that the half-bright mind of man can dream up. She knows they're out there, pining to have ...

Jeb Bush has been adamant that he will not switch his positions on two issues, immigration and Common Core standards, that will generate conservative opposition in the Republican primaries. But he just made a major concession to conservatives on ...

The Electronic Privacy Information Center has asked the Federal Trade Commission to investigate Samsung over what it says is the recording of private conversations in homes through the company's television sets. The privacy rights group filed a complaint with ...

From the National Center for Science Education House File 272, introduced in the Iowa House of Representatives on February 17, 2015, and referred to the House Committee on Education, would, if enacted, prevent Iowa from adopting the Next Generation ...

When journalist Chai Jing released her documentary on China's air pollution, she probably could not have dreamed that her message would resonate so widely while boosting the share prices of so many "environmentally friendly" companies. On Monday, more than ...

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Kevin talks about a pervasive industry problem - being compliant according to your auditor and their checklist, but still being highly vulnerable. One of the common faults in compliance is senior level managers who don't really know enough end up ...

Curt Schilling showed a young punk you don't mess with his daughter on twitter. Schilling's fond paternal congratulations were met with "tweets with the word rape, bloody underwear and pretty much every other vulgar and defiling word you could likely ...

In this era of raw nerves, protests and increased tensions, Americans really want leadership. It's natural for the public and the media to desperately seek out examples that appear to affirm that our nation is changing for the better. ...

By this process, you can arrive at a conclusion like this: To win the War on Women, you better put a ring on it. At CPAC, conservatives dedicated an entire panel to "The Future of Marriage." One could be ...

Earlier today interested Redditors posed questions to Poitras and Greenwald in Los Angeles, while Snowden posted from Moscow. A rare opportunity for average people to directly communicate with the (in)famous leaker.See the entire discussion HERE Redditor masondog13 asks: What's the ...

Wait a minute... watching Fox News and the Republican talking heads I learned that all Muslims are bad bad bad and in no way can Islam be interpreted as any sort of peaceful religion. news.yahoo.com OSLO (Reuters) - More than ...

For the last three years it's been my privilege to help coach a dedicated group of young women who have founded the first Women's Flat-Track Roller Derby league in Israel. They've learned, trained, fought, and worked unbelievably hard to bring ...

Added bold is all mine. this was an awkward way to go about gun control anyway. It clearly impacts the law abiding far more than felons, and is by that definition inefficient and intrusive at best. Gonna have to do ...